Alex in Hampshire has a useful suggestion for how Sarah from Stirling from AMT195 can damn her friend’s debut novel with faint praise:
I used to take a creative writing class at uni. Every week, we’d have to read other students’ manuscripts and give them some feedback on their work. Now and again, someone would come along and write something that was complete and utter bilge.
I found the best way around this was to start every savage criticism with the phrase “I like it, it’s good – for a first draft”, before pointing out the multitude of stylistic and creative errors they had made.
This had the effect of giving the poor, talentless writer the affirmation they desired, whilst also inferring that they should not in any circumstances show their magnum crappus to anyone whose opinion may actually matter, or the wider world in general.
In AMT194, Rosemary Daniels taught us that it’s not what you know, it’s who you know, and this is far from unusual as Elliott from Coventry observes:
The Reg Grundy/Rosemary Daniels discussion reminded me of Gene Roddenberry’s wife, Majel Barrett. Not only did she play a character in the classic Star Trek, but she was also Deanna Troi’s mother in The Next Generation. Additionally, she provided the voice of the ship’s computer in all the incarnations of Star Trek, including the 2009 film, which was released after her death in 2008.
Idioms present a challenge when attempting to master any language, as Jeannie in Beijing demonstrates:
I work as a business English trainer and a few months ago one of my students asked me to recommend a good chicken tail wine.
Following several moments of confusion, I realised that he was referring to cocktails, but had adopted a very literal translation. This is one of my all time favourite examples of Chinglish – the term complacent expats (who usually speak little or no Chinese funnily enough) use to refer to entertaining mistranslations from Chinese to English.
My top 3 examples:
3. (On a toilet door near the Olympic Stadium) ‘Deformed man toilet’
2. (Written on the front of a school text book) ‘Today’s real simple like you, you and you no longer’
1. (In a hospital waiting room, pointing the way to gynaecology) ‘Cunt Department’.
Readers, do please share in the comments your favourite foreign malapropisms. Although I suppose Jeannie’s examples aren’t so much malapropisms as the very essence of bluntness.
Last week’s discussion of songs about wanking raised some upsetting memories for Sarah from Oklahoma:
When I was about 5, I learned all the words to “I Touch Myself” and learned a dance where I kept touching my face and my arms – it was very good. My brother who was 11 years older than me thought it was hilarious and said I ought to go show my mom’s friends who were downstairs.
I made it about 3 lines in before my mom grabbed me and put me in my room and told me to never sing that song again.
If you are five and you want to cause a stir, here’s the song you need to master:
Kaboom! Bangbangbang! Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Sizzle! It’s Bonfire Night this Saturday, but we’re letting off a rocket a couple of days early, in the form of Answer Me This! Episode 195:
This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just 79p at the Answer Me This! Store, through a secure server, without DRM restriction. CLICK HERE to find out more and support our podcast. (This helps keep our most recent episodes free)
Plus, in this week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App, Olly recounts a bad-taste wedding-day prank with tragic consequences. So if you want to ruin an upcoming wedding, fire up your iPhone, iPad or Android device to learn how. At least you won’t have to sit through the bride and groom’s honeymoon photo slides, since they’ll never speak to you again.
We will never speak to YOU again if you don’t send us your QUESTIONS, so you had better leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis) or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Don’t make us send you to Coventry, OK?
There’s something which is far more likely to result from a wedding than a lifetime of marital bliss: everlasting rifts with family and friends! Add a faraway wedding destination to the usual stresses, with associated expense and inconvenience, and forty years later Cousin Mabel will still be shredding the bride’s Christmas cards.
So have pity – and advice – for Rob from Bedford here:
We are a UK-based family. My sister is getting married next year and has decided to do it in Sri Lanka of all places, which means we are being asked to fly to Sri Lanka and spend a week there for the wedding.
My wife thinks that this is an unreasonable request and I’m fairly uncomfortable about it myself. I also have a small child to think about, who will be a few weeks short of two years old by then. Who knows, we might even be expecting a second.
I don’t think you can use hypothetical foetuses as an excuse not to go, but I understand your grievance. ‘Reasonable’ is not usually uppermost in a couple’s mind when planning a wedding, although even the most wedding-bonkers pair should be reconciled to the fact that many of their guests will not be able to make it if distance and cost are involved.
However. As a member of the immediate family, you really are obligated to make every attempt to attend, even if you have to go solo and leave your wife and child (and, alright, your potential child-to-be) at home.
Agreed, it’s pricey and annoying, if your sister or her fiance have no ties to Sri Lanka and have no reason to be holding the event there other than it’s nice. But your absence would be interpreted as a hostile gesture, not only by your sister but by other members of your family. If you think going to Sri Lanka for a week is inconveniencing you, just imagine all the tearful phonecalls and rows in the run-up, and the recriminations for an untold span of aftermath.
It’s an event that means an awful lot to your sister, so if she means anything to you, stop complaining and start researching flights. Better still, start thinking positively about the occasion: I hear Sri Lanka is very beautiful and child-friendly, and your sister has given you the excuse to take a family holiday there.
Jack in Leeds sounds more chipper about his faraway wedding problem:
My friend is getting married in November. We would love to attend but he has, rather selfishly, chosen to hold the wedding where he lives, Sydney in Australia.
Despite this, I still want to get them a nice gift, but would like something more imaginative than ordering flowers etc. So, answer me this: what would be a great wedding present that would fit in a card?
Readers, go to the comments and help Jack choose a present. As things which fit in a card tend to be vouchers, which are BORING, I have decided to extend the criteria to include non-floral items and/or services he could order for delivery in Australia. Go!
Are there any vets* reading this? We’ve just received an emergency call from James from Washington DC:
My dog just swallowed a condom.
It’s not mine…we were in the neighborhood for his morning walk.
Will he be ok???
Readers – will he? Does James need to perform emergency surgery with the stick with which they were playing fetch? Should he try to get the dog to puke up the offending item? And does he need to take any special measures to avoid catching an STD from the inadvisable snack?
The argument about Lego keeps going round and round. After the pasting he received from Andrew from Southampton last week, the Lego-avoiding 14-year-old Will from Haddenham from AMT193 has invoked his right to reply:
Andrew from Southampton, I’d like to point out that Lego is an excellent toy and I won’t fault it for any reason (except for its price label in some cases), but if I went into school tomorrow and said to my mates: “Hey guys, you won’t believe the trouble I’ve been having with this Lego set I’m building”, then I am sure that they would take the absolute piss out of me, I’d be instantly labelled as a ‘sad loser’ and I’d never be able to live it down.
I wish things were different, but that’s how it goes these days. I’m not going to lie, Lego has undoubtedly been my favourite childhood toy and it will be enjoyed for many years to come as I have a little brother and there’s tons of the stuff at home. So please don’t accuse me of being a Lego hater, but I’d like to point out that I’m also not a fanatic.
This seems an entirely reasonable response to me. Let’s just all agree now that Lego IS great at almost any age, but 14-year-old boys are too busy with wanking, experimental intoxication and existential angst to be occupying themselves with it.
In cities the world over, people are staging sit-ins; so naturally we followed suit, and sat in AMT Towers to produce Answer Me This! Episode 194. Yeah, we’re sticking it to The Man!
This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just 79p at the Answer Me This! Store, through a secure server, without DRM restriction. CLICK HERE to find out more and support our podcast. (This helps keep our most recent episodes free)
This week, we talk of:
naughty nuns Going for Gold The Lion King 3D
fancy dress pitfalls
AFoLs (Adult Fans of Lego)
standard deviation in men’s haircuts
Cornish separatists
Victorian vaginas
Hans Zimmer
high tea
L7
the pink British Empire
impersonating a police officer John Suchet (NOT David Suchet)
the true meaning of ‘fascinating’
ALF the Alien vs. nipple tassels
and Southall’s antique jamrags.
Plus: Olly’s suspicions are proven correct that the perennially awful Rosemary Daniels did not get into Neighbours on merit; Helen’s not going to allow someone else to have the pleasure of waving sharp blades close to her head, thankyou very much; and Martin the Sound Man fleetingly refers to ‘The Bill Callahan Effect’. Don’t worry if you’ve never heard of this phenomenon: it is familiar to precisely one person, and that person is Martin. Well done, Martin, for tapping into the popular consciousness so very effectively.
On this week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available for iPhones, iPads and Android devices) you can find out what costume you need to be sexy, smart AND snug on Halloween. Clue: it involves tweed and elbow patches. Ring-a-ding-ding!
Like the greedy greedy bankers, we are greedy – for your QUESTIONS! Leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis) or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, and don’t worry about the consequences: us having a big coffer full of questions will not mean that 99% of the populace has to struggle on without questions at all. Especially as we’ll be giving those questions BACK in next week’s episode, plus interest (answers). In the AMT economy, nobody has to suffer.
Episode 194 requires a visual aid, to illustrate Andrew from Southampton‘s rejoinder regarding Lego. He argues convincingly against Will from Haddenham’s assertion in AMT193 that Lego’s for the kiddies, and presents us with photographic evidence of his own Lego creation in action:
Well he’s definitely won me over to the dark side.
Bobby from Sheffield has a problem in the bedroom:
What can I do to make my woman initiate sex? We’ve been going out for 4 years and not once has she made the first move unprompted.
I’ve tried waiting for a couple of weeks but I caved in, asking her about it but she says she’s scared to get it wrong.
From what I gather it’s her insecurity (I am considerably more athletic than she) and sheltered upbringing (she was a daddy’s little princess) that prevents her from taking the lead. She’s always on bottom yet it would be nicer to feel desired once in a while.
Apparently this is a common problem with guys I’ve spoken to.
Even though we’re all supposed to be sexual stormtroopers in the wake of SATC and whatnot, it is indeed a common problem, and Team AMT members will have undoubtedly encountered it; so I appeal to them to find their inner Dan Savage, then go to the comments to offer sensible and sensitive advice for Bobby and his unconfident lady.
Luckily for us all, James from Oxford has spent much of the past two decades in deep cover, just to provide the inside scoop following last week’s question concerning I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter:
I used to work with Unilever in the mid 90s on various projects, including the development of their delicious-sounding ‘yellow fats’ strategy for Asia.
Ever fond of an acronym, ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter’ was shortened to ICBINB within the company. My team had to regularly feign excitement about the prospects for ICBINB and other yellow fats.
Eventually as our fake excitement for fake butter wore thin we further shortened the name internally to FMIM, or ‘Fuck Me It’s Marg’.
This small act of childish subversion somehow gave us the morale boost necessary to soldier on with our meaningless lives.
Meaningless? You brought yellow fats to Asia! A continent that didn’t even know it needed them! Hold your head high, conquering hero.
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